Pulling Out All the Stops

This morning my choir agreed to sing for our host church's regular Sunday service. They're not normally slack in the music department, as I discovered first hand while watching the organist play on the church's pipe organ.

From my vantage point, on the floor at the foot of the organ, I could see his music, his fingering, and the complex heel toe playing on the foot pedals. On the right hand side were the many stops that controlled the air going into the pipes, which were in turn controlled by an additional set of foot pedals. Given the complexity of the music in front of the organist, and the magic of the stops, it was a jaw dropping performance, to say the least.

For fun, I imagined myself gobbling up those difficult passages in the music with the same ease.